Hey There, i think my antenna module is “a bit” broken because im constantly dropping LTE and WIFI connection. Which is totally my fault because i got a little bit of water in it.
I contacted the official support to ask which part i need to buy to replace the antenna module and all i got for an answer was “ask your reseller and btw do you have a buying receipt?”
Seriously…wtf? this thing is 5-6 years old and you ask me for a receipt? Thats not the kind of service i expect from a company that advertised diy repair… why would you need that? just tell me which spare part i need to buy!
Well be it as it may can someone tell me which module i need to buy to replace the antenna?
And will i lose my data by switching the module?
… i know but it just says “top module” or “bottom module” that doesn´t help me to identify in which part the antenna is build in. I don´t want to buy every module just to be aple to replace the one part i need.
Well its written “top module- this has everything you need to call” so i guess its probably that but i can´t be sure. Maybe a real list with contained parts would be more useful.
In none of them. But I guess, you probably don‘t talk about the mechanical antenna, but you think about the modem.
Anyway, chasing down the problem isn’t that easy. Did you take apart the phone after it got wet?
Yes i did but it didn´t got that wet. Only a small drop im not even sure if it caused the problem.
I mostly experience this issue while driving.
It almost seems like the Phone is losing the connection to the nearest Celltower and is unable to reconnect to the next one. After i lose connection i can just enable/disable Flightmode and the connection is back on.
I also have a worse network connectivity than before in general. When i had 4G/LTE in most places before i get Edge now. Wifi isn´t that bad but the Cellnetwork connection is pretty wild
The modem is normally part of the main chip (SOC). That should be on the Mainboard which you can’t change if I’m not mistaken.
However, these issues can also be in any auxiliary components in the RF path (connection from Modem to Antenna). If for instance the traces or discrete devices are oxidized they change their RF behavior slightly. This can lead to sudden connection drops when the environment changes. Unfortunately, it gets quite tricky in modern phones. The antennas are distributed over and part of the housing. As a result, changing anything between soc and shell can have an effect.
To give an example how difficult that can be even for manufacturers. I had a HTC phone some years back, which had insufficient passivation. The sweat environment in my pocket was killing the device (phone connection would drop when i hold it to my head). I had 3 Phones in 2 years then I got the money back. I believe they knew it had issues that’s why at the time it was half price of MSRP.
To give you some tangible advice:
Disassemble the phone see if you find any visible discolorations of contacts. If yes change that part.
Other step’s can be:
Disassemble and clean each board with contact spray.
Put the phone in vacuum (could be risky) or in 80 deg C for 5h (not the screen/battery only boards and metal parts). Both of these drive out residual moisture.
Edit: Some language cleanup I was a little messy on the phone.
